


A Phenomenon Mixed Up in a Miracle

by illegalmuppetfighting



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blogging, Case, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hospitals, M/M, Scotland Yard, Tea, mealworms, now featuring angst, now featuring lazy morning fluff, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illegalmuppetfighting/pseuds/illegalmuppetfighting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little 500-word snippets of story and a unique approach to the ship that is Johnlock</p><p> </p><p>For my wonderful girlfriend and muse. If you have comments/suggestions/critique about the characterization, please, tell me, this collection is me trying to break out of my writing hiatus shell and getting a better grip on these characters is going to be my goal for the New Year, so favor me with your words!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenandriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenandriel/gifts).



John Watson did not _cling_ to Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

 

[January 8, 2013, 4:08:37 p.m., anonymous]

 

 

 

Neither did he _cower_ behind him, or _expect_ to be saved.

 

 

 

[November 24, 2012, 11:24:52 a.m., superKelsie<<3][March 3, 2013, 02:07:21 a.m., anonymous]

 

 

 

  John Watson was not a damsel in distress, and could do his own saving, thank you very much. He was a creature of singular thought and function [free will], capable of living his own life with or without the Consulting Detective. A million, billion cells [46,000,000,000,000-68,000,000,000,000 on average in the human body] all bonded together, cells becoming tissues becoming organs that somehow, inherently, became John, the doctor [calluses on the inside of the thumb and shallow scars around the fingers from fumbling the scalpel, measured tone of voice, unscrupulous handwriting], the soldier [brutal efficiency arming/disarming/dismantling a weapon- handgun- quivering hands, posture, the tan which had almost paled to obscurity over time], and the Friend[a title which warranted capitalization for its importance].

 

 

 People might say he stood in the genius’s shadow, that he was dependent, a slew of fancy terms that all unanimously implied he was the inferior of their duo. A fact assumed by strangers that was blatantly false. Neither man was inferior- despite the opinions of others; they met each other as equals when they spoke and interacted, because neither of them needed rescuing, but somehow they had rescued each other.

 

 

  It was, truthfully, a strange phenomenon twisted up in a miracle.

 

 

 John Watson did not, and never would, hide behind the persona that was Sherlock Holmes, literally or figuratively.

 

 

 So when he hit the enter key and let out a juddering breath, he felt exposed and somehow rubbed raw, despite the layers of shirt and jumper and Consulting Detective wrapped around his shoulders. He stared, a bit unfocused, at his blog, the light of the computer screen burning into his retinas against the darkness of the flat that framed it. The loading symbol went around and around and around and around-

 

 

 The sound of a small scoff by his ear caused John to emerge from his reverie. An amused (if still rather nervous) grin at the dark mess of curls and sharp chin pressed into his shoulder, a tiny vibrating sound in the back of his throat, and his scrutiny was turned back to the computer screen, thumb running incessantly over the back of the thin, pale hand that had draped around the back of the chair to clutch his own wide, unshaking, rough palm. It was an uncommon expression of sentiment (in this case, it was the only thing that revealed that he was as anxious as John, rather than slightly miffed and a little uncaring) that didn’t go unappreciated in the least. 

 

 

 

**UPDATE POSTED**

 

 

Here’s to leaps of faith into murky, insurmountable caverns of social media.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

Coming out to the Yard had been more like stepping out of a glass closet.

 

 

 

With spotlights on it.

 

 

 

And a large, flashing arrow.

 

 

 

 

  That is to say, nobody was surprised if after a particularly stressful case involving clowns, a serial killer, a kid’s daycare and the near death of a certain Consulting Detective, John unobtrusively pulled Sherlock off to the side, beyond the yellow tape and the intense disparities of the gloomy streetlight and red-blue-red-blue flares of the cop lights, and kissed him softly, hands clutching at the lapels of the taller man’s coat, what little light that reached them reflecting off the glitter in their hair [the clowns fault, really]. Nobody said anything if Sherlock wordlessly ran his hand across the small of John’s back while indicating something under the lens of a microscope as they inclined over a table sprinkled with scraps of evidence in the lab [literal scraps, seeing as the boy-16, Indonesian decent, avid rugby player, judging by the tibia they were examining-had been ripped to shreds].  Nobody said anything if two accustomed guests let their gazes catch a millisecond too long to be comfortable [not that it would be anything new].

 

 

  Nobody ever _said_ anything about the two, and Sherlock and John never were confronted on the exact status of their relationship as it stood, so maybe ‘coming out’ wasn’t really the correct term for how the less platonic side of their relationship had gone from a ‘maybe’ to a ‘definitely’ in the eyes of the closest thing they had to coworkers [clients], but overall there seemed to be an underlying thread of approval displayed in the most subtle ways.

 

 

   It ranged from Greg [Lestrade] peering at them across a dead body, crossing his arms and leaning back in a pose he often assumed while making judgments on criminals or listening to Sherlock, and giving a small, curt nod at John, who almost laughed at the dead-on image of a protective father letting his first child out on a date [and he would’ve except for the bright glare of a flashbulb reminding him _right, crime scene_ ] to the not-quite-so-subtle-and-rather-painfully-awkward attempt at bringing the subject about by Molly, who was perhaps a bit in denial about the whole thing, having never really _met_ John and then not having a reason to for three years…

 

 

  She never really got any words besides ‘it’s fine’ out, and though John might have been a bit remorseful for the poor girl’s heart, Sherlock was quick to bring up her new boyfriend as soon as there was a lag in the stuttering.

 

 

 

As far as closets go, glass ones are a bit redundant, don’t you think?

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

   John sighed and leaned his head forward into the heels of his hands, rubbing his fingers into the hollows of his eyes. The bright glare of the florecent lights bouncing off the linoleum floor greeted him when he removed his hands. The sharp bend of the chair dug into his back despite the ugly, mottled padding. Everything felt too clean, too pristine, inhuman and sterile. The hallway was empty and the harsh white walls refected his every breath back at him, the chill of the hostpital, usually so familiar, setting him on a knifepoint edge. He felt like a perfect juxtaposition for the entire scene, grimy and tattered as he appeared on the outside clashing in a way that made him want to find a shower- a bath, a sink, anything-and scrub until he was clean. Until the blood was gone from his hands and washed out of his shirt, the dirt was out from under his nails and every crease of his skin, until he was clean and then _more_ , scrubbing and scrubbing until his skin was raw, until he somehow reached his perverted mind and convulted soul, and rinse those clean too.

 

  This place made him feel like the filthy thing he was.

 

  And he couldn't face the scene in the room behind him. He just couldn't. He might shatter into something he would rather the doctor's not see, something deep and poisened by years and years of seeing people hurt and not being able to save them, and having to _accept_ that. He hated it. So he faced it, in being a doctor, then a soldier. And revolted against it, in joining Sherlock, in working with him and running beside him and watching people not die, for once in his life.

 

 

Sherlock.

 

 

 

Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

 

 

He could save people, he could fight what seemed to follow him everywhere, but now it seemed he was paying the price, in the form of a bullet through the leg, which wasn't normally anything too dangerous but the damned thing had hit an artery and _it had only been a six the case had only been a six it wasn't supposed to this wasn't supposed to it couldn't it wasn't_ and there had been blood, everywhere, shining black in the white light of a forgotten street lamp in a forgotten alleyway, as John fumbled his phone and called 999 and choked out something he thought was words and dropped his phone because _holding him, holding Sherlock_ was damn well more important and it had been minutes, minutes that seemed like hours that seemed like days, as John fought to keep Sherlock still as he groaned and spoke words he couldn't remember in pained tones _h_ e definitly could and Sherlock finally passing out from the pain and was that a blessing or a curse John didn't know-

 

 

   

 

   The ringing in his ears as the medics arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

   The ambulence.

 

 

 

 

 

  The harsh light of the surgery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And now the hallway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because John Fucking Watson couldn't handle it, and he hated himself for that completely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because Sherlock Holmes had rekindled that need to fight for someone, at all costs, and not to just _accept._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that same fire was now burning John to ashes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"He's stable"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding and held back a dry sob of relief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd and unbritpicked still...if you want to volunteer, just shoot me a message!

 

 

 

  Focus cohered, a thousand piercing arguments, to his very being. It was like one of those pictures that you could see in a science classroom- which Sherlock would scorn for being useless and present solely for the purpose of making the room aesthetically pleasing which was _idiotic_ \- the ones where people manipulated iron shavings with a magnet so they all frayed in countless directions, a million cutting delicate points, constantly shifting as the magnet moved. Every synapse of his brain fixated, sharp eyes roving and observing, sweeping up every relevant scrap of data. Like a magnet.

 

  John let out a small grin at his internal description. Poetic- the man he was describing would scoff at the analogies he was making. But it was early; John could be excused of his inner poet, brought on by the (admittedly rare, in this city of mist and rain) sunny morning, tea fumes (augmented by the faint scent of ammonia from the experiment on the table), and resonance of violin throughout the flat (absolutely nothing different about that, but at least Sherlock wasn’t torturing the unfortunate instrument, mornings that started filled with screeching, dying cat noises usually ended with confiscating his gun from Sherlock).

 

  For those reasons, he wasn’t going to react with anything more than a sigh when his hand bumped what looked like a bag of _godamn squirming_ mealworms when he grasped for the teabags.

 

  Steam drifted languidly from the identical cups in his hands as he left the kitchen, greeted by the familiar silhouette of his flatmate in the window, made all the more melodramatic (because Sherlock couldn’t go five minutes without being a damn showoff) by the sunlight spilling in. The music did not slow at the interruption, resounding about the room, the sway of the bow hypnotic in its voyages across the taunt strings, as John set Sherlock’s tea on the small tabletop beside his chair. A small huff of content left his lips as he sat down in his own chair, cupping his hands around the cloying heat of his own teacup. There were advantages, he thought, to being a little bit unemployed.

 

  Surfacing briefly from his lazy-morning stupor, he surveyed the room with slight concern. Just yesterday, Sherlock had been a whirlwind of lack-of-case, a hurricane rampaging through the flat, victim of two weeks of boredom. Brought on, as John had regrettably pointed out, by his own pickiness in cases he considered ‘interesting’. That comment had earned him a scathing glare and a rather acerbic monologue.

 

 

 His eyes lighted on a manila file, uncontaminated and novel and _interesting_ **,** amidst the commotion of the bookshelf.

 

 

 

 A case.

 

 

 

  A genuine, full smile slipped from his mouth. He closed his eyes in content for a long moment as the last note of a recently completed piece permeated the room and faded slowly.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day???? Yes, my friends. Yes.

 

 

 

 “John.”

 

 

“I know, I know, shut up.”

 

 

_“John.”_

 

 

 

  Sherlock’s voice sighed with exasperation. John fumbled with his tie, as he always seemed to do, despite his protestations that he ‘knew perfectly well how to tie a tie’, and he ‘didn’t need help, sod off’.  In the end, he would always go downstairs and quietly ask Ms. Hudson for help. Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask his blasted flatmate, even if it was ‘obvious’ that he hadn’t managed to get the tie on himself.

 

  John gave a frustrated tug on the fabric, cursing this bloody art gala to hell. Getting into the museum had been easy (Sherlock seemed to have come by two security guard uniforms, and John had the tact not to ask questions) , finding the suspect was an everyday(female, natural brunette but was currently dying her hair red, green eyes, dark complexion, art enthusiast, painter and thief, which wouldn’t be interesting except that she had a tendency to use human blood-preferably fresh- as a medium),and even  the presence of his Browning in the inside pocket of his suit (which he had placed there at a hint from Sherlock that this might get messy, a hint John didn’t need, thank you very much, seeing as they were chasing a serial killer who painted with blood) was normal. Typical, if not exactly easy, but well-practiced occurrences. Getting a tie on- hell, he hadn’t had to do that since medical school. And he’d never been very good….

 

  Clever fingers brushed aside his own, working with brutal efficiency. John gave a little annoyed (but secretly grateful) huff, feeling useless and a bit vulnerable. Sherlock muttered under his breath, something about _should just have let me do this in the first place_ and _stop fidgeting_ _._

 

  The cold tile and unforgiving chill of the room seemed to lessen slightly. It dawned on John how ridiculously _domestic_ this must look. Not that domestic was bad, per say. John had spent his life searching for (and, in equal parts, running from) domestic. Domestic was stable and warm and common. Domestic was making coffee in a girlfriend’s apartment after staying the night and trying not to laugh at her terrible bedhead. Domestic was the routine day-in-day-out of the surgery. Domestic was a good book and a warm jumper.

 

 

 

  Therefore, it was perfectly, amusingly, shockingly ridiculous that _Sherlock_ and _domestic_ should exist on the same plane, in the same sentence, within the same train of thought at _all._

 

 

 

  Yet here he was, standing in a frigid museum toilet, in a (stolen?) security guard uniform, about to catch a murderer in the middle of an art gala, while his unreasonable, eccentric, stunning, startling, genius, bastard flatmate adjusted his tie. And he was freezing, and the rough fabric of the too-small shirt chafing against his wrists was in no way comfortable, and Sherlock’s eyes were unwavering and piercing and heavily blue, and it really, really should be the farthest thing from domestic.

 

 

 

  Maybe it wasn’t domesticity. That really wasn’t the right word, was it?

 

 

 

Tutoyant.

 

 

 

  The word was from a past girlfriend, Alice, a dark-haired slip of a girl who worked part-time at a bookshop, owned a small corgi, and could kiss him unsteady in five minutes flat…

 

  Alice had used the term when she broke up with him. She did have a thing for long, archaic words. Although, in this case, he hadn’t been left scrambling for a hint of definition. Her meaning had been clear enough.

 

  He checked, later, on the web. At the time, he had scoffed it, pushed the very word away in his mind, gone and found Jeanette in a pub a month beflre Christmas and look where THAT ended…

 

 

John was clear-headed enough now to realize that Alice had probably been far, far too good for him.

 

 

The moments between him and Sherlock, they were not domestic. Not really, not in the usual way. Sherlock’s slim hand on his tie and cupping his elbow as they moved effortlessly to the gala, morning cups of tea lost under stacks and stacks of books, opening doors to interrogation rooms and lifting yellow tape-

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tutoyant: (n) affectionate; intimate; with great compassion


End file.
